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reply to post by Soloprotocol

You're in the perfect place in your mind, right now, to actually see the topic from a perspective that few others do. Humans have a tendency to fall
to one side of an issue or another when looking for evidence. Few can keep an objective mindset, and stave off confirmation bias. But when you come to
a point where the truth matters more than your bias, that is the perfect time to take a fresh look at old evidence, and a different perspective on new
evidence.

Don't close your mind. Use your critical thinking skills in a new and objective way. Remain open to new evidence, for and against.

Yeah, but in light of what the newer 'planet hunting' satellites available ae doing, and that there may be planets as close as 13 lys away, that and
the fact we have been 'broadcasting' for a lot more than 200 years means that little blue 'bubble' is in fact immensely ] vast, at least in
relation to our little dust mote of a Solar system!

Ufology had some mileage in the 40s and 50s, but, from about the mid 1960s, we've known for definite that there is no other life in the solar system,
that only Earth is in the habitable zone vis-a-vis the sun.

This pretty much did for Ufology.

Before then, we could imagine the real possibility of invasion from Venusians or Martians.

Although many millions of kilometres distant, they were tolerably close.

But we now know that even our next door neighbour - Proxima Centauri - is without life, and that's 4.2 light years away.

Yeah, but in light of what the newer 'planet hunting' satellites available ae doing, and that there may be planets as close as 13 lys away, that and
the fact we have been 'broadcasting' for a lot more than 200 years means that little blue 'bubble' is in fact immensely ] vast, at least in
relation to our little dust mote of a Solar system!

it just boggle's the mind !

Yes, the sheer scale of the galaxy and the smaller-than-a-spec-of-dust size of the Earth in comparison does boggle the mind. In fact, compared to the
size of the known universe, the earth is MUCH much smaller than a spec of dust. It is so small it could be considered virtually non-existent.

However, I'm not sure what you mean when you say we've been broadcasting for more than 200 years (actually, I said 100 years -- making our
"broadcast bubble" 200 light years in diameter [100 light years in all directions]). What were we broadcasting prior to the invention of radio, and
maybe even prior to the wide use of electricity?

Prior to the human use of radio waves, and even prior to human industrialization, the planet would have seemed just like any other rocky planet with
water and an atmosphere if it were detected by ETs from across the galaxy. What would make Earth stand out from the other potential millions of
similar planets in the galaxy that would make an ET want to visit?

Think outside the box now. What if an unknown percentage of lifeforms require other means to sustain life? There may be planets or places where
it's all water, or all gas or all whatever and lifeforms exist there. Some lifeforms may be inorganic or don't require a physical body to sustain
life, hence they could survive in multiple environments.

Think outside the box now. What if an unknown percentage of lifeforms require other means to sustain life? There may be planets or places where
it's all water, or all gas or all whatever and lifeforms exist there. Some lifeforms may be inorganic or don't require a physical body to sustain
life, hence they could survive in multiple environments.

The possibilities are endless.

Right -- but in that case, that would make our planet even LESS remarkable to them.

It would only be one of trillions of planets in the galaxy. If they detected it from (say, for example) 10,000 light years away, what would make it
special enough to visit compared to any other planet?

edit on 2/18/2013 by Soylent Green Is People because: (no reason given)

For the ones that can survive and/or tolerate our environment, they may use their time to visit and maybe collect samples for studies and
experiments. Or maybe they visit to deposit samples here and use as a basis for their experiments. Who knows? We can only speculate as much as our
human minds will allow us.

Most of the information on cases of fighter jets scrambled to chase these things is not made public, but we do have the case of two F-16s in Belgium
chasing a UFO tracked on five NATO radar screens, after which radar data from one of the jets was played back at a press conference. We also have the
case of a Peruvian pilot who chased a UFO in full view in daylight of 1,800 men standing in formation facing the action, marked "unknown" by the
DIA. He told his story at the National Press Club in the event organized by Leslie Kean and James Fox. There are also some videos on YouTube of pilots
and their commanders describing UFO scramble cases.

Nick Pope says there were about a dozen U.K. scramble cases and that he suspects there have been at least 100 U.S. cases, although very few are known
to the public. Yet nobody is making the gun-camera footage public. That means that governments are definitely deliberately withholding some of the
best evidence many people think doesn't exist.

A man in USAF uniform once told me that he had chased a UFO and the other pilot crashed into a mountain. I don't know if we was lying or not, to be
honest, but I certainly have no cause to doubt the Belgian general who briefed the press, clearly explained as he showed radar playback, and still
sticks the story.

In the Westall case, there were 200 witnesses, and a teacher snapped several photos. Her camera and film were confiscated. The very act of
withholding those pictures is evidence that some in the Australian government believe those witnesses. There are also physical landing traces in that
case and thousands of others.

And if you want really good photos, I am working on a camera-control system designed to detect a hovering object and capture zoomed, high-parallax 3D
footage, to be backed up by FOIA requests for weather and FAA radar data. That's described in my signature ATS thread.

Originally posted by CJCrawley
Ufology had some mileage in the 40s and 50s, but, from about the mid 1960s, we've known for definite that there is no other life in the solar system,
that only Earth is in the habitable zone vis-a-vis the sun.

This is pretty much wrong, so is your statement about Alpha Centauri.

Why do you think we're going to Mars and digging holes, searching for possibly still existing (or formerly existing) life on Mars?

In the last few decades...we made TONS of discoveries which entirely contradict what you just said, we not only found water on Moon/Mars...we found
TONS of possibly "Earth like" planets, one or more of them also around Alpha Centauri. We found a possibility for life on some planet's moons, like
Mars' Europa. We found possibly microbes on meteorites and a TON of other evidence that life is out there. RIGHT NOW we do *not* know whether
somewhere in our solar system is life or not.

For the ones that can survive and/or tolerate our environment, they may use their time to visit and maybe collect samples for studies and
experiments. Or maybe they visit to deposit samples here and use as a basis for their experiments. Who knows? We can only speculate as much as our
human minds will allow us.

edit on 18-2-2013 by Jaellma because: (no reason given)

Fine. You are still telling me why ETs would want to visit another planet "in general". However, what would make them want to visit Earth
"specifically".

Earth is smaller than a dust speck relative to the rest of the galaxy, and is only one of trillions of planets. In your scenario of an ET race who
could survive almost anywhere, Earth could be easily overlooked and ignored, considering how "unremarkable" it would be to them.

I agree. I think there's something out there... it's only mathematical probabilities.

I totally agree with you here the chances of there not being more life out there is pretty small knowing how the universe works and knowing that its
so big we still can't see across it. I mean come on who's to say a star didn't blow up 4 billions years after the universe started and that super
nova eventually created life?

My personal belief is that life is one of the more common things in the universe compared to some rare materials and elements.

I know personally I'm not convinced that we are, or have been visited.

I do believe that intelligent life is out there, advanced technology or not. I'm just not so sure that intelligent life capable of getting off it own
planet is common placed at all.

A lot of people assume that if life evolves to the state of making tools, that it will one day end up in space. I really don't think this is the
case. There have been many times throughout history that humans could of gone the way of the dinosaurs. Shoot, there are any number of world, and
species killers that could of got us on the way. Beyond the fact that by the point of space travel, you have so many means to destroy your own
species. Who knows how many would be spacefarers ended their own existence this way? In all honesty, we could do the same ourselves.

The fact of the matter is, we have nothing to base any of this off of other than ourselves. We really have no way of knowing, if we evolved and
advanced quickly, slowly, or in between. Now, we can assume in between, but still have no way of confirming that. Are we warlike? Peaceful? In
between? I don't think that all people desire war and destruction, and the fact that we don't go around nuking everyone into oblivion proves that we
aren't warlike to the point of insanity.

There are too many other factors to consider, I think a lot of this recent AA crazy, and the universe is so huge idea has taken away from the fact
that, big or not, there are so many factors to determine when considering the chances of meeting Alien race that there is no way to really say for
certain that they must have come here, or that they must know we're here. The fact that the universe really is a "massive" place in my mind proves
that more likely than not, we will not meet another race any time soon, if ever.

ET out there? Sure, I'd put money on it. ET so common place that they have to have visited us? Unlikely.

I'm skeptical as well these days. You'd think a Russian dashcam would come up with something CLEAR and in DAYLIGHT. (and not cgi and NOT a meteor)
Or that in thousands of years we (the public) would have something land on our laps by now.

40s and 50s??? Really? I guess you hadn't spent any time ready about the Colares Flap of 1977. Or the Varginha Incident in 1996 or the many other
incidents occurring ALL the time.

No, I didn't say there are no incidents occurring today.

How about you go back and re-read what I did say?

In a nutshell, the alien hypothesis no longer holds any water - cos which planet do they come from exactly?

I think many of the ET visitation believers also believe in some sort of faster-than-light travel.
Therefore, they would say the ETs could be visiting from far away.

I personally don't think there is enough evidence to support alien visitation, nor do I have any idea if faster-than-light travel is possible, but I
also feel there are intelligent ETs out there, somewhere in the universe, and even in our galaxy.

The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

What would make Earth stand out from the other potential millions of similar planets in the galaxy that would make an ET want to visit?

In our near future, we'll be using something like spectrum analysis on the atmospheres of planets discovered by Kepleresque missions. As the science
evolves we'll probably look for signatures of industry in the atmospheres like light/heavy carbon emissions and methane levels. It's a reasonable
direction for our SETI ambitions.

The number of confirmed planets is growing and improving technology might plausibly be refined to identify moons too. It seems reasonable to me to
expect most planets to be barren like our own immediate neighbours so a system of narrowing the focus to identify those with life-sustaining
atmospheres and technological signatures would be an inevitable next step.

*If* there are civilisations out there, just *maybe* they'll follow the same path?

One can only speculate on the motivations or capabilities of speculative civilisations, but hypothetically, maybe Earth would be worth visiting? We're
on the nursery slopes of a dramatic learning curve and yet, so far, the 800+ planets and systems we know of fall outside of what we consider the
'habitable zone.' That makes Earth pretty damn special for now.

p.s. I'm not arguing that ET are (or have) visiting us.

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.

We/us Humans have evolved in a certain way to suit our needs...yeah we are the only species that can travel to the planets...well not yet, but i've
no doubt we will have a man/woman on Mars in the next 30 years, but there are other fascinating creatures on this planet that will probably never
leave it's environment...why??? because for Millions of years it hasn't needed to, but they have evolved and adapted and survived just as well if
not better than we have...

Example, take this Creature...i find this awesome in so many way....A Squid that can hunt it's pray by creating a light source that covers it's
shadow...how is that for evolution.....who knows what is out there in this fantastic Universe...the mind does Boggle..

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